Different benefits can be associated to low- ILUC production agricultural systems. These are associated to climate change mitigation measures such as carbon sequestration on soil, to sustainability co-benefits like reduced use of pesticides and improvement of biodiversity in alternative lands, as well as environmental, social and economic  co-benefits.

The EU’s Renewable Energy Directive (‘RED II’) recognises the potential for biofuel feedstock production to enhance the carbon stock of agricultural soils as a measure for mitigating greenhouse gas emissions. The RED II’s formula for calculating biofuels’ lifecycle emissions considers “emission savings from soil carbon accumulation via improved agricultural management” (e_sca). These improved agricultural management practices include “Shifting to reduced or zero-tillage, improved crop/rotation, the use of cover crops, including crop residue management, and the use of organic soil improver (e.g. compost, manure fermentation, digestate, biochar, etc.)”

Soil carbon practices to a low ILUC-risk ‘additionality measure’ could qualify biofuel feedstock for low ILUC-risk certification.

The low ILUC-risk concept is founded on an ‘additionality’ principle:

certification may be granted to projects only if they are implementing new and/or improved farm practices, and only if these practices go beyond business-as-usual management. Assessment of the last point is conducted through an ‘additionality test’, which requires that a project.

While biofuel feedstock production comes with some risks, it also offers genuine opportunities for biodiversity and nature restoration.

This is particularly apparent when considering low ILUC-risk projects which introduce crop production embedded in a sustainable agricultural model to unused land or abandoned agricultural land, in order to harvest additional biomass for energy without competing with food and feed production.

This type of low ILUC-risk project may be implemented on: